About four years ago, I wrote to an interesting and attractive woman I spied on Match.com. Early in our written communication, she said that she and her ex-husband had once joined and then left a polygamous cult.

My first thought was, “Whoa, that’s nutty.” My immediate second thought was, “Let’s be fair. I have done my share of nutty things, too.” The only question, I realized, was not who and what she was then, but who and what she is now.

We met for lunch and hit it off. We have been together since, except for a one-year hiatus, after which we both had the good sense and good fortune to get back together.

The more Joanne recounted the madness of her days in the polygamist cult, the more it sounded like book material. Yet I hesitated. The market seemed flooded with smarmy memoirs by piteous ex-polygamist wives. Did anyone really need one more?

Then we had an idea. Johnny Carson once defined humor as “pain plus time.” We decided to tell Joanne’s story with humor and sarcasm. What better way to expose cultish thinking, along with the abuses that are part of it?